IBM Wants to Make it Easier for Enterprises to Build Blockchain Enterprise Applications

by Sean Michael Kerner

New starter plan is all about providing a simple entry point for organizations to get started with blockchain.

Blockchain is one of the hottest areas of enterprise application development in 2018, providing organizations with a distributed ledger system that can have myriad application possibilities.

While the opportunities for blockchain are limitless, many organizations have been limited in their ability to get started with blockchain. IBM is now aiming to help solve that challenge with the general availability of its IBM Blockchain Platform Starter Plan.

IBM's Blockchain Platform is based on the Linux Foundation's open-source Hyperledger Fabric and is hosted and managed in the IBM Cloud. The starter kit includes a lightweight toolkit to help organization try out and build blockchain applications.

The starter plan also provides organizations with a $500 credit toward their first blockchain service on the IBM Cloud.

The starter plan had been available in a limited beta prior to general availability, which occurred on June 27. The beta period enabled over 2,00 developers to try out blockchain.

"While Starter Plan was originally intended as an entry point for developers to test and deploy their first blockchain applications, users also now include larger enterprises creating full applications powered by dozens of smart contracts, eliminating many of the repetitive legacy processes that have traditionally slowed or prevented business success," Jerry Cuomo, IBM fellow, vice president blockchain technologies, IBM Blockchain, wrote in a blog post.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseAppsToday and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.